Saturday, September 27, 2008

First off, I'm skipping Comic 480 because my entire post would be "eh, that was kind of funny, but it seems like sometimes you are putting no effort at all into these."

Ah, youtube commentors. A fitting target for anger. Probably, though, you already know what I'm going to say about it. But just in case -

This is comic is absolutely nothing more than a lamer version of comic 202. Both have exactly the same point - Youtube commentators are idiots and they write stupid things. Funny, yes, but no more so now than it was then. There are also a few reasons why the first one is better anyway -

- He actually gives examples of comments, which even if made up are pretty funny and are similar to what you'd see on youtube, whereas the new comic just kind of mumbles through it

- The new comic has a totally lame and unneeded Mr. Hat appearance

- There is a totally unneeded "ooh check it out I'm making a virus, i'm such a cool hacker" panel.

Anyway, I guess there isn't much more to say but this is basically a kind of sad shadow of the first Youtube Commentors comic. I mean, what's next? "My hobby: Drawing a map of the internet, and it's like got facebook over here and digg over there" or "Dude check it out, if you go up to him and say 'Sudo buy me a donut' he totally has to do it!" ?

Seriously, you need to make comics that aren't just reformations of old ones.

And you know what? While we're on the topic of dumb comments, I foolishly took Greg's advice on my last post and read the comments on Mr. Munroe's soon to be pulitzer prize winning novella and let's just say there are a few people who could use that virus even in the generally intellectually brilliant world of xkcd:

"you should consider writing entire books filled with this awesome."

"now i can get through class by thinking, what would this look like xkcd style and everything is so much better…until i realize its not but that’s what pie is for"

"Ron paul should be shot"

Bastions of sophisticated discourse, right there. But I'll be damned if you ever see Randall mention anything about how his own commentors are sycophantic lapdogs who live only to breathe the air that the glorious Randall once may have breathed, or perhaps stood near.

And as a final note, there was one comment on the story that truly made my day...

I wonder if that guy at xkcdsucks makes any money off his blog about your blog, how sad, he can’t exist without you to complain about, it would be really annoying if he was profiting from such ugly parasitism, is he making profit off of complaining about you? I want to know cause then I can make money off complaining about him complaining about you.

If any of you know how to make money off this blog do e-mail me. However, I am concerned that this Apropos character has learned my deep secret - without xkcd, I cannot exist! I will turn into a greenish vapor and vanish, making all around me puzzled and perhaps doubting their sanity for the rest of their lives. Also, if the idea of this "ugly parasitism" making money bothers you, my god, don't ever listen to talk radio. Or watch the news in an election year.

Vlad - I completely agree that many early ones were great. That's why I started this blog in part - because it used to be good and then went downhill, and few people seem to notice. There are tons of things out there that just suck, but I started a blog about xkcd because of how it sucks compared to back then.

Jay - nice.

Pat - I don't think he's trying to build of 202. Maybe just like thematically, but there's no connection besides the topic. Maybe if the example comment had been "it was a soundstage on mars" or one of the others, to at least indicate that he realizes it's a similar topic, I would believe it.

Ok, just to be clear, the "Carl" whose name is not a link is of course a very different Carl from yours truly. Accept no substitutes - Only the real Carl Wheeler's username will link to the real Carl Wheeler's blogger profile.

With that out of the way -

Fake Carl, I would not say there is anything particularly selfish about my need to criticize. I mean, the comments here, for the most part, seem appreciative, and it's not like I'm getting paid for this (though I am going to look into that at some point...)

Pathetic, maybe, though really no more so than a movie or book critic. Just less filtered.

I will say that the original purpose of this blog was to satisfy myself. Is that bad?

As to making fun of my shitty writing, I already am writing a fair amount right here, feel free to make fun of it.

I like to think my posts are generally more thought out than youtube comments, but who knows?

I am not the troller/flamer above but i have posted in other articles, Point A. Its a good idea, and youtube took it, so this comic actually served a purpose. Point B.Again, read the Alt. Text, it has humor in it that ties the comic together. Point C. You are serving no useful purpose with this hate blog.

"this comic served a purpose"? Really? Has it made youtube a better place? I'll believe it when I see it. To think it would would require a) that the comments always be read out loud, and b) that hearing stupid comments read out loud would stop people from making them. Neither of those is true here.

On the alt-text, I don't think it ties the comic together at all. As you can see if you read my own alt-text, the "how is babby formed" comment doesn't make sense here because that wasn't even a youtube comment. No one goes to youtube comments to ask medical questions. The alt-text isn't bad, but it certainly doesn't make the rest of the comic better.

As to point C, you are wrong: I am making myself and a small group of readers happier. That is my purpose.

I always forget about the, ahem, "alt text" (title text people!!), and I don't think the comic should NEED any alternate text to make it's point, or to make it humorous. Everything the comic requires for those purposes should be contained within the comic itself!!

"TLDR: Get over yourselves and stop over analyzing things"

Well, there are a small group of regular commenters on here, I'm a regular reader, and I very much enjoy the critique on this comic. It is, these days, much more amusing than the comic itself to me personally! Sometimes part of the fun in life is to analyse things, and just because we're not giving it the glowing reviews you no doubt think this comic deserves does not make the opinions of the writers and the commenters on this site any less valid.

Unless, you know, you want to start spewing on the xkcd forums "stop over-analysing this comic!" in response to the more positive reviews. Fair's fair.

Bunnie, those are excellent points. Of course, while I agree with you on the purpose and place of alt-text (sorry, habit) that one's really just an opinion that is hard to "prove" so to speak. But I do believe it is true.

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

Frequently Asked Questions

Divided into two convenient categories, based on whether you think this website

Rob's Rants

When he's not flipping a shit over prescriptivist and descriptivist uses of language, xkcdsucks' very own Rob likes writing long blocks of text about specific subjects. Here are some of his excellent refutations of common responses to this site. Think of them as a sort of in-depth FAQ, for people inclined to disagree with this site.